Loving Your Mama and Daddy at Christmas, Part 1
I recently had a delightful phone conversation with a homeschooling mama I have not met before. I’ll call her Alison. As we chatted about her homeschooling question, Alison mentioned that her father works on cars and that her 12-year-old son enjoys doing that with him. I told her that I thought that was wonderful for her son. I said that if her father is someone good for him to be around, I thought she should encourage their getting together to do this. I was sorry to qualify my advice, but I know that in our fallen world, the need for my qualifying statement is real.
Alison assured me that her dad is a great person for her son to be around. She told me that her parents committed their lives to Jesus when she was just one year old and that her dad serves as a pastor. She spoke of the blessing of their living only fifteen minutes apart and about how grateful she is for that.
As we were wrapping up the conversation, Alison gave me sweet encouragement about my writing. She is thankful that I write about relationships between adult children and their parents. Like me she thinks it is a rarely addressed but needed topic.
Alison told me that she talks to her mother on the phone every day. She said that it is a practice she learned from her own mother, who taught her to honor her parents and grandparents. She said that she thinks back to her mother’s conversations with her grandmother. She said that her mother talked on a rotary phone. Alison said that she is able to walk about and do other things during her daily conversations, but that because of the cord her mother had to sit while she had her conversations.
I searched on Library of Congress for Christmas and telephone. This 1892 photograph is not of a busy mama talking to her mama on a rotary phone, but at least it illustrates having a corded phone. Best of all, it is adorable.
Alison said that a friend has asked her, “Why do you call your mom every day? What do you have to say to her?” Alison told me her reason. She said that her husband and her mother are her best friends.
Alison listened to her mother’s teaching, she watched her mother’s example, and she makes daily decisions to follow her advice. Her mother is blessed.
One way to bless your mama and daddy this Christmas is to stay close—at Christmas and all year through.
Let your father and your mother be glad,
And let her rejoice who gave birth to you.
Proverbs 23:22